


A different Kind of Meeting

by mephestopheles



Series: Interludes of My Still Beating Heart [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Happy meetings, M/M, Trans Characters, definitely not part of the canon, or the fanfic canon, slow roasted canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-04
Updated: 2018-06-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 07:44:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14848586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mephestopheles/pseuds/mephestopheles
Summary: Alternate meeting of Thorin and Bilbo takes place in chapter four instead of the absolute pain that branches off from there.





	A different Kind of Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Au of my own Au because my original Au was too depressing so I wrote this to make myself feel better

“Bollocks it all. It’s time for breakfast.” He said and set off to raid his pantry.

 

*

 

He held in hand a map and a missive from Gandalf. He couldn’t believe the information it contained. It couldn’t be. It had to be a cousin, or an imposter. He spent days haunting Ered Luin, before Dis and Dwalin had all but shoved him from the house and onto a pony. ‘Go see for yourself. I’ll come with you if you need a second.’

 

In the end he had gone himself. He couldn’t do this if Dwalin had been with him, let alone Dis. The directions were unmistakable. Round green door at the top of the hill, the home of one Mister Bilbo Baggins.

 

Mahal it couldn’t be true.

 

By the time he had travelled from Ered Luin. Dawdled more like, it was nearing the end of September. The weather would turn in a few weeks and Thorin still wasn’t sure if was making the right decision. He sat his pony rigid, the reins gripped in tight hands as the painfully familiar smell of the Shire greeted him. Grass, summer flowers, the hay fields.

 

Lemons.

 

The last breeze of summer.

 

He stabled the pony and walked from around the Shire, circling the Green Dragon Inn and the market. They were setting up trestle tables and tents in the main field and everyone was laughing and being cheerful. It made him sick. The scene was so familiar and so foreign, and bitter. Another birthday that almost was, another time.

 

Thorin intentionally got lost and took the long way round to the top of the hill, his stomach fluttering madly. Of course it wouldn’t feel like stone, he wouldn’t have the surety of his decision settle in his gut. No, it bounced around and floated in him till it felt like his stomach was near his neck and beating in time with his heart.

 

He took a steadying breath, and opened the gate. It squeaked horrendously. Had he fixed it all those years ago? He could no longer remember. It needed repair again. He didn’t have any of his equipment with him, left at home in his forge in Ered Luin.

 

He closed the gate and took the steps up to the door one at a time, feeling as if he float away everytime he lifted his foot from the comforting ground. Thorin took a deep breath, the door looked well-tended, no rust on the metal, and the paint while not fresh was a new coat.

 

He raised his hand and knocked on the door once, twice. Immediately he regretted the decision and wanted to flee, to run away with the fluttering in his stomach. He couldn’t do this, he could not see who lived here, who had taken Bilbo’s place. Who dared to claim Bag End as their home. He heard footsteps behind the door and he took a step back, thought frantically that he might have time to run.

 

Thorin wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t he had stood firm and cut the hand off the beast that had killed his grandfather, he had led dwarrow for decades. But here, in the quiet solitude of the Shire he was petrified of a green door and the hobbit that lay beyond.

 

The handle clicked and the door squeaked. Thorin caught sight of a navy blue jacket and honey and copper curls, an {achingly} familiar hand. Eyes the many shifting colour of labradorite shone back at him, mirroring his shock. A familiar braid hung around the hobbits ear, and still dangling from the end, his bead.

 

“Y-your gate squeaks. I forgot my tools but if you have any to spare I could fix it.”

 

His hobbit let out a choked sound and stumbled forward. Thorin could not see any more through the blurring of tears. He didn’t hide the tremble in his hands as he reached up to touch Bilbo. He hesitated just before touching him, afraid he was a fever dream or an apparition.   

 

Bilbo stepped between his arms and the spell broke as he gathered the hobbit against him, inhaled his scent and shuddered as the world righted itself inside him. He tried very hard but he could not stop shaking, and neither had it seemed, could Bilbo and they stumbled and collapsed on the steps, Bilbo very much in his lap. Thorin didn’t know what he was saying, couldn’t understand the words coming from himself. He knew they were somehow Westron, but he couldn’t parse what he was garbling until Bilbo took hold of his face between his very read hobbit hands.

 

“Yes I am alive. Is that why you never came back? Did Isengrim tell you I was dead?” The softness in Bilbo’s features left and an anger he had not seen in the young hobbit replaced it. “I swear if that abominable hobbit were not dead I’d kill him myself.”

 

“No,” Thorin managed, but his throat was dry and it cracked. He coughed to clear it and started again but Bilbo put his fingers against his lips and Thorin closed his eyes as he kissed them. They tasted of sugar. Unable to stop himself he cupped Bilbo’s head in his hand and drew him close. 

 

“May I kiss you?” He asked.

 

Bilbo’s reply was a harsh sound and his lips pressed against Thorin’s. The shaking returned but Thorin did not care as he opened his mouth and licked his way inside Bilbo’s awaiting mouth. Their all too brief kisses years ago didn’t hold a candle to the taste of his One’s lips now. Thorin echoed the needy sound Bilbo made as he discovered all the things he had dreamed these last years.

 

Thorin kissed Bilbo until his chest ached and he needed to let go to catch his breath. He realised only after several seconds of Bilbo trembling against him that they were still outside, in full view of and sharbrugan that decided to wander by. With a grunt he stood, Bilbo firmly held in his arms. Thorin wasn’t about to let him go. Not now, not ever. He took them into the house, hesitating only a second on the threshold to be thumped by his hobbit.

 

“Inside before the neighbors start jawing. Half of them are down by the party tree, but they have a remarkable view of my front stoop.” He laughed suddenly and clamped a hand over his mouth but Thorin gently pried his fingers from around his mouth and kissed them.

 

“I haven’t heard your laugh in eighteen years. Do not hide it from me now. I have missed it so terribly.” He whispered and his emotions threatened to overrun him in that moment.

 

Bilbo’s features soften and he pressed his lips to Thorin’s forehead. Thorin let out a weak sound found the front room and the nearest chair. How his legs managed to carry him he didn’t know. Bilbo arranged himself on Thorin’s lap and thread his fingers through Thorin’s hair.

 

“So much time. I’ve wasted so much time,” his One whispered.

 

“No, it is not you. Bilbo I must apologize. There is so much I need to apologize for. I should have returned, when you didn’t respond to my letters I should have come here and spoken to you. I never meant to leave you here alone. I do not have any excuses, my people needed me, but I should have been here for my One.”

 

“Thorin, I should apologize. I wasn’t doing well after you left, and it took a long time for me to come out of it. I did not receive any of your letters, and I admit the sale of the forge threw me. I, am ashamed but I ran away. Friends from Rivendell arrived to pay respects to mum, and I left. I couldn’t stay here. So had you come back I would have been gone.” Bilbo said in a rush.

 

“You did not receive the letters?” Thorin closed his eyes. He should have known.

 

“No, Isengrim had my mail rerouted to through Tuckborough. I’m sorry, I should have believed in you. By the time I came back to the Shire ten years had gone by.” Bilbo hung his head and the braid hung limp on the side of his head. Thorin fixed it gently, running his fingers over the shell of Bilbo’s ear, watching as the hobbit shivered. “My cousin gave me the letters, but by then so much time had passed, and the post mark was two years old. I feared the worst. Thorin I’m a coward of the worst kind and I should have gone after you, but I feared so much that you didn’t want me.”

 

Thorin shook his head pulled Bilbo against him. “I have never stopped loving you. Not for one instance. I thought at first you were angry with me, you had – have – every right to be.” Thorin took a deep breath. “I’m more than the simple dwarf I’ve let you assume me to be. I have no excuse for such actions, only that you are the only person I have ever met who did not have any expectations placed upon me other than to be myself.

 

“I am… the leader of my people.”

 

“What you’re the mayor or Thain of Ered Luin?” Bilbo looked at him confused. “That explains your particular knowledge of dwarven politics I suppose. I had assumed you were just well versed.”

 

Thorin smiled but shook his head. “We do not have mayors or Thains. No, I am descendent of House Durin, my father, and my grandfather were leaders before me. More so. They were kings. I have inherited the title, but nothing else. It is not an excuse, and I never meant to keep this from you.”

 

Bilbo sat back and stared at Thorin. “A king?” He chewed his lip and shifted uncomfortably. “Were you ashamed of m-“

 

“NO! Never. I have a title, Bilbo. I am not accorded any of the rights or observances of that title, for my kingdom was taken from me.”

 

“Was anyone hurt? I hadn’t heard of anything happening in Ered Luin. Is your family safe?”

 

Thorin managed a weak smile. “My family is safe. This happened a very long time ago, and much farther away than Ered Luin. My home is in the East, my grandfather was King of one of the greatest cities, Erebor. It was taken from us by a Dragon. We were exiled and lost. We tried to reclaim another of our lost cities but it was not to be.

 

“I lost much of my family in that battle. And I managed with the help of those left to get us to the Blue mountains. Ered Luin is a place, but it is not my home. I haven’t known the feel of home until I walked through your door.”

 

Bilbo wiped at his eyes. “Oh, you. That, that right there is sneaky. I should be truly angry with you.” Bilbo said, and there was a thread of it in his voice. Thorin opened his mouth to agree but Bilbo shushed him. “As it is, I just might be later. But seeing as today is my birthday, and although you are eighteen years late, you still arrived. I might just forgive you. As long as you promise not to disappear like the dream I’m sure you must be.”

 

He didn’t have any words as he stared up at his hobbit. He pulled him closer, running his hands over Bilbo’s back and rear. Thorin didn’t take his eyes from Bilbo’s, the hobbit let out a soft sound and his lips found Thorin’s again. Thorin groaned and squeezed Bilbo’s firm arse and pulled him tightly against his chest. It had to be a dream. Nothing in Thorin’s life had ever gone this smoothly. 

 

There was no way the firm body in his lap was real and in a few hours or a few minutes when he awoke he would be back in his cold bed in Ered Luin.

 

Until then though, and he hoped it was hours at least, he was going to acquaint himself with Bilbo’s form, his scent, his laugh.

 

“I love you,” he whispered, thickly in the space between them. It didn’t convey even a hint of what he felt thundering in his chest, but it was a start. “I love you.” 

  
  



End file.
